Poll

As higher education institutions strive to improve their professional development offerings, institutions should look to providing just-in-time learning opportunities that give students more choice when it comes to content and delivery method.

Co-Written by Erin McCloskey | Faculty Associate in Distance Education and Professional Development, University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Continuing Studies

As providers of several professional development certificate programs, we remain curious about trends and changes in similar programs. Throughout 2012, DEPD delved further into this topic. We contracted with Eduventures for a national scan, reviewed websites and empirical studies, and conducted an internal survey of program enrollees and alumni. The eye-opening results provided clear directions for future work in professional development.

Research & Results

Eduventures’ August 2012 study investigated twelve non-credit certificate programs with a focus, similar to ours, on effective online instruction. Their study concluded that there exists no consensus on required time and effort for preparing to teach online. Reported time-to-completion ranged from 5 weeks to 9 years, with a median of between 1 and 2 years, and hours of effort ranged from 14 to 480, with a median of 89. For this study, hours of effort were calculated from state requirements for Continuing Education Units (CEUs), with each CEU representing 10 hours of effort (click here for more details). Three DEPD certificate programs currently require 30 (Basic Online Teaching Certificate), 100 (Professional Certificate in Online Teaching), and 200 (Distance Education Certificate Program) hours of effort.

Our own investigation of professional development programs that prepare faculty/instructors in online teaching yielded similar, sobering results. First, among institutions offering professional development, time requirements vary greatly: 2-32 hours, 2-10 weeks, and 6-18 months. Second, professional development in online teaching is rarely required of online instructors; Ray (2009) found only 27% of institutions with such a requirement. Of faculty teaching online, 50% (Lackey, 2011; Kosak et. al., 2004) to 63% (Perrault et. al., 2002) reported receiving no professional development prior to online teaching. In Lackey’s study, 50% of respondents had attended either formal or informal training activities, but only one addressed pedagogy; this could explain why faculty still reported feeling “…as though they were thrown into teaching online without any support or training.”

Themes noted by Kang (2011) during faculty interviews included:

Don’t waste my time, if you don’t know what I need

Training is critical but often boring.

Several institutions have recently revised their faculty/instructor professional development programs in online teaching pedagogies. The University of Central Florida (Chen et. al., 2012; deNoyelles et. al., 2012) shortened their program from 9 full-day face-to-face sessions to 1 ½ days plus ‘best practice’ online modules and in-person design consultations. Kansas State University (Boggs & Spire, 2012) reformatted their program into a set of online modules, each requiring less than an hour to complete. They also introduced Take Five segments, 5-minute videos each focused on a specific teaching strategy. These approaches align with the reflections of Pennsylvania State University’s Michael Moore, who recommends that institutions “…encourage self-managed professional development.” (Moore, 2006)

Results from our internal DEPD survey suggest that we, too, reduce time and effort required and heed Moore’s recommendation by introducing more flexibility. Sixty percent (60%) of respondents (n= 114) preferred a certificate program that could be completed in 6 months or less. Sixty-six percent (66%) preferred the opportunity to pursue their own learning goals. Fifty-six percent (56%) reported that interaction with peers was helpful but not essential, suggesting less emphasis on longer, collaborative courses. Fifty-seven percent (57%) want to access professional development on a mobile device, indicating a need for bite-sized chunks of content.

Next Steps

Clearly, in both non-credit certificates and faculty development programs, the range of required time and effort varies widely. What is the ideal? Lawler et. al., (2004) and Aguilar et. al., (2012) suggest refocusing faculty development on adult learning practices. According to Luck and McQuiggan (2006), faculty/instructors prefer a series of short, self-paced sessions.

Thus, in today’s fast-paced world, the ideal will likely involve: streamlined content providing short bursts of quality learning; brief showcases of best practices; as-needed access to professional development materials; and a flexible, self-determined mix of individual and collaborative online learning opportunities. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we plan to revise our programs in this direction and, as always, assess the results.

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2 Responses to Adapting Professional Development to a Faster-Paced World

A very eye-opening study…”sobering” indeed. Kind of ironic that in online education–an industry that has so much to do with knowledge, upgrading, and piecemeal education–the instructors have been more or less left behind with regards to this development.

Good to see this issue being recognized and hopefully something can be done about it

I think it is extremely important to provide online instructors with the training they need. In fact, to provide all higher education instructors with some version of online education training.

Especially those who are making the transition from a traditional classroom environment to some version of an online learning environment… whether this is a fully online course, or just an aspect of the course that take place online.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the online learning environment isn’t simply the classroom transposed into cyber-space; it is an entirely different beast, with entirely different challenges, engagement strategies, achievement markers, etc. To learn to make use of this new space effectively and thoroughly is absolutely key to the usefulness and relevance of online education.